"[Lindsay Dragan's] vocals are tinged with the country style of Sheryl Crow and the deep-throat of Joan Osborne. Her approach is light-hearted but uses the strength of rock ‘n’ roll to let out her dark side. Dragan proves she’s a talented guitarist." - FlagstaffLive!
Little ten-year-old Lindsay Dragan was very sad that her parents made her use her father's old 1970s Fender acoustic guitar that sat in a Pittsburgh attic for 15 years when she began to play guitar. The tuning pegs creaked and the neck was bowed. Two hours of begging for an electric guitar didn't work, so Lindsay went up to her bedroom, listened to Fleetwood Mac, and pouted.
Oddly enough, though, it was that same beat-up guitar that a young Lindsay began to write songs on. She spent hours trying to mimic the picking style of Lindsey Buckingham, the sloppiness of Kurt Cobain, and the scorching solos of Jimi Hendrix, while honing her vocals in the school of Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, and Tori Amos. Even after she bought an Epiphone Les Paul and amused herself by hooking several solid-state amps together to see how loud they could get, she strummed and picked that acoustic guitar when she didn't want to venture down into the drafty basement to play electric guitar. She took that guitar around town and sung her songs to coffeehouse crowds in a voice that was surprisingly big for such a small, 5' 2" body that barely tipped 100 pounds on the scale. Word of Lindsay began to spread around the Pittsburgh area, and she spent her high school and college years oscillating between loud rock bands and solo work. She got lucky enough to open for Brandi Carlile in September 2007 as part of her college rock band, The Meridians, and has toured around the country on her own on various occasions.
Today, a 24-year-old Lindsay Dragan resides in Brooklyn, New York, and plays her music at venues all over the Northeast. She draws inspiration from location (she grew up in Pittsburgh, lived for two years in Flagstaff, AZ, before moving to NYC) and states of mind. A recent graduate of Northern Arizona University's MA in Creative Writing program, Lindsay highly values lyrics that strike a balance between complicated ideas and accessibility. Add solid guitar work to the mix with a healthy influence of classic rock, blues, early punk, and folk, and that's Lindsay Dragan in a nutshell. And don't forget the cheeky (and sometimes outright hilarious) stage banter that's become a staple at her live shows.
Her debut solo EP, Hot Corners, was released in early April 2010 and incorporates all of her above components, and gives the listener a plethora of sounds - from the low-fi garage rock anthem, "Looking To Fall" to the dancey, uplifting single, "Next Step," there's something for everyone to enjoy, tap their foot to, or worse - dance to.
When she's not working on her own solo work, Lindsay is one-half of the Brooklyn indie-rock duo Sunshowers, her collaborative effort with Matthew Keesan (formerly of Cheese-On-Bread fame), and is an active participant of the storied Music Under New York busking and art program.
As for her father's guitar, it stays at home these days, in Lindsay's childhood bedroom. When visiting, she strums it for awhile, and if she gets lucky, a new song comes her way.
